One of the fun parts about jailbreaking is adding custom animations to everything iOS does. Along with theming, it is one of the ways that we can add personal customization to each of our one-of-a-kind iOS devices. Of course, without these personal customizations, they wouldn’t feel too one-of-a-kind, would they? A new tweak dubbed DisplayCandy iOS developer Josh Kugelmann allows you to set animations for many of iOS’ functions, such as opening and closing applications and even switching between applications from the multitasking App Switcher. Above is an example of one of the animations (TV Tube) when exiting an application.

Since DisplayCandy can change the animation of not only exiting and entering applications, but also switching between them from the App Switcher, the tweak feels really complete. Not to mention, the animation from switching applications is compatible with the popular recent release of Dash, which we covered here.

After installing DisplayCandy, you will notice a new preferences pane in the Settings application for DisplayCandy, which is where you will set all of your options for the tweak. The preferences pane is shown below:

The preferences are organized well; separating the animations into three sections for each of the three instances you can change the animations for. The preferences pane also lets you enable and disable the tweak on demand, which might be helpful if you have a migraine or something and you’re not in the mood to see animations. Under each section is a slider that lets you adjust the duration of the animation for each. There is also a direction option under each section, which only applies to certain animations (like Flip), allowing you to make the animation occur right, left, up, or down. Under closing and opening applications, there is a suck to option, allowing you to have applications suck to the center of the screen or to the home button when using the Suck animation. The Suck animation is my favorite for closing applications and it is shown below with the suck to home button option enabled:

Under each section, the user can also pick from a myriad of different animations. The list of animations is shown below and includes:

Default (Apple's default animation)

Cube

Flip

Page Curl

Page Uncurl

Ripple

Suck

TV Tube

Fade

Cover

Reveal

Push

Camera Iris

The application switching animation excludes some of these animations because they just wouldn’t look right for application switching, such as suck, which would just look awkward if used for application switching. That being said, the developer took careful time to only include animations that would be aesthetically appealing to the situation at hand and didn’t just include every animation in each list for the heck of it (props!). He even grayed out customization options where not applicable.

After playing with the animations and their customization options, we’re pleased to announce that this tweak is made with care and won’t slow down your device. Performance isn’t an issue whatsoever – animations are smoother than cutting through butter and the customization options will brighten up the experience of any iOS device. The tweak is absolutely worth the download and I would recommend it to anyone looking for some fun.